Perfect Life
by Feygan
Summary: Toad takes a trip through someone else's life, seeing things he never imagined. Completed December 2003.


Title: Perfect Life  
Author: Feygan  
Fandom: X-Men: Evolution  
Pairing: Scott/?  
Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men: Evolution  
Warning: contains rape, violence, prostitution, drug abuse, mutilation  
Contact:  
Home: .  
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They all think I'm stupid. They look at me, see my ugly face, and think I'm some kind of retard.

It's like being ugly is a handicap.

Sometimes I want to scream at the world, to throw back my head and just let it all out, yelling and yelping and shouting and raging at everyone and everything out there. But I don't, because there's no one really on my side, and I'm more likely to get a brick to the side of the head than any kind of sympathy.

My mutation makes me crave a lifestyle of filth, but that doesn't mean it doesn't bother me. Sure, I'm always pretty dirty and I eat things that other people might think are garbage. I've tasted bugs bursting between my teeth and I've had things on my hands that would have made my old self vomit.

Even as a little kid I was never pretty and I was never very clean either. My parents never cared about me. We were poor white trash and it was obvious to tell from the first look at us. Dirty, ragged haircuts, third and fourth-hand clothes that not even Goodwill would take, and a smelly little apartment with never any food in the fridge but always something rotting on the counter.

I've got things much better now. There's food to eat, clothes to wear, and I live in a cool old mansion with no real authority figures telling me what to do, and I never have to see those bastards that called themselves my parents again. Everything's better than I ever thought it was going to be, but that doesn't make me happy.

Living in a suburban town populated by preppies, they all look down on me. They call me names behind my back while I'm still in the room with them, like my being ugly means I'm deaf too. They rub their noses as though to wipe away some horrible stench when I walk by. They squint their eyes at me and no one ever looks right into my eyes, it's always just over my shoulder as they twitch around nervously, just waiting for the chance to escape away from me.

There's no one in this town that I would really call a friend, not even the other members of the Brotherhood. They're just the people that I hang out with because there's no one else that wants me around. Still, I know that they don't really like me. They just tolerate me. And that's perfectly fine with me, 'cause I've got nowhere else to be, and hey, there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of someone if they're assholes anyway.

"Hey Todd, what are you doing?" I turned around to find Scott Summers standing behind me with his hands in his pockets.

"What do you care?" I demanded rudely.

There was a flash of something almost sad across his face, but it was gone before I could really identify it. "I guess I don't, not really. I was just wondering what you were doing," he said.

"Nuthin'," I said sullenly. I hate how those stupid X-Geeks are always poking their nose into everyone's business. They just always gotta know what everyone else's doing, and if it's anything remotely fun they've gotta ruin it for the "good of mankind." Assholes. "Why don't you just go bother someone else?"

Summers just looked at me for a moment, then shrugged. "Yeah, whatever." With his hands still in his jeans pockets, he walked past me down the street, his shoulders hunching a little against a wind I didn't feel.

I watched him go and felt a flash of jealousy. He was just so damn perfect all the time.

Scott Summers has good grades, is handsome, fairly popular, and always seems to know what he's doing with his life. He has everything that I don't, and it's fucking unfair.

Looking at him, I don't think he's had a single day of hardship in his life. Everything's just been so good for him. I could really hate a guy like that. He doesn't know what it's like to be ugly.

I don't know what happened. It seemed as though the world just suddenly flipped.

Dimly, I felt myself stumble and fall, but it didn't seem to matter. The bit of self that made me, me, had already left my body behind. Though where I was going, I didn't know.

***FLASH***

The plane was on fire, the mechanicals sparking while the right engine flamed to nothing.

I know I probably should have been freaked out about suddenly being here, but it didn't really seem to matter. All that meant anything was the four other people aboard the plane.

A red haired man screamed curses as he pounded at the controls, trying to work the radio and keep the plane from slamming hard into the ground. In the passenger area, a slender blond woman clutched two crying children to her chest, two boys that were so young and terrified that it was hard to watch.

"I love you," she said, giving each boy a hard kiss on the lips. Then, her expression setting, she grabbed the one parachute and strapped it to the oldest boy, a five year old redhead. She grabbed the smaller blond boy and shoved him into the redhead's arms. She ripped the belt out of her jeans' belt loops and used it to strap the boys together.

Tugging the older boy along by the hand, she pulled open the door. Air swirled around them hard. She stumbled and grabbed one of the straps on the wall next to the door to steady herself.

"I love you," she said, looking into both boys' faces one at a time. "Take care of each other." Then she shoved them out the door.

I watched them go screaming out the door and I didn't know what to do. I saw them fall as a single speck, then the mushrooming bloom of the opening parachute. I saw as one little speck detached from the larger mass to fall alone, and I knew that something terrible had happened. The woman sobbed next to me.

***FLASH***

I was standing in the middle of a street. I didn't really recognize anything around me, but that didn't seem to matter.

My attention was drawn to the three people in front of the gray brick building.

A small red haired boy standing between two women, staring straight ahead with unblinking eyes. He didn't seem to notice anything around him, just held one of the women's hands and stood there.

It was then that I noticed that his left arm was in a sling and there were red marks around his throat that looked frighteningly liked fingerprints. He was just a little kid, but it was obvious that someone had tried to strangle him recently, an adult someone by the size of the marks.

"They don't want him anymore," one of the women said.

"Why not?" the other asked.

"They said he was too much of a troublemaker. He won't play with the other children and all he wants to do is sit in the corner with his book."

"Dammit. Well, we knew it was going to be hard to place him. That notation of brain damage in his file means that no one wants him, but I really hoped the Castills would keep him for longer than two weeks." The woman reached out, taking the boy's hand from the other's. "Come on Scotty, it's back to the orphanage with you."

At the woman's tug, the boy walked with her, never saying a word. There was such a look of sadness in his eyes that it made my skin creep. He was just so quiet and strange. There was just something wrong with the kid, nothing obvious at first glance, but that definitely could be sensed.

As they walked, the woman spoke to the boy, admonishing him in this super-sweet voice that was twelve times worse than a bunch of shouted insults. It made my heart ache just to hear it, since I'd had that kind of tone directed at me before. It was the kind of voice that would tell you that you were being switched to Special-Ed classes just because you missed turning in a few assignments while some slacker rich kid didn't do any work all year and picked on everyone and still passed. It was the voice that said you were getting free government lunches and that you didn't have to feel ashamed about it even though all of the other kids were going to know you were too poor to afford even a fucking loaf of bread. It was the voice that ripped you open and stomped on everything that made you human, and the person that used it didn't even know how much they hurt you, and really, they just didn't care.

"You have to try harder to get along with your foster families, Scotty," she said, barely glancing down at him. "No one is going to want to keep you for long if you don't listen better to what they tell you to do. When it's time to play with the other children, then you have to play, do you understand? No one wants a boy that just sits in a corner reading books. You have to be more outgoing. No one wants a child that acts like you do, Scotty. You're just going to have to try harder." I could practically hear her add "You useless piece of shit" in my head, though of course she would never have said that out loud because she saw herself as being so much better than the "rabble."

Without a single change of expression, a tear trickled down the boy's down turned cheek. He was biting his lip hard enough to draw blood, but he kept walking alongside the woman, holding her hand.

***FLASH***

The view changed and I was watching a strange scene unfold. It took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on, but when I did, I was horrified.

A few years older than last time, the same boy was curled up into a little ball in the back of a closet, clutching his knees to his chest. At first, it just looked like he was playing at being afraid of the monster under the bed or something, but when I looked closer I saw that he'd been badly beaten. He wasn't playing and this was definitely for real.

His eyes were swollen shut by the bruises distorting his face. His lips had been turned into a pulpy mess and his nose was drooling an endless stream of blood. He was curled up with his arms trapped between his chest and knees, his hands clamped tight between his legs.

There was something oddly broken about him and I wished that I could be away from here. I didn't want to see this kid anymore. I didn't want to know his problems or see his life. It was all just too sad, too bad, and there was nothing I could do about it. I hate being fucking helpless.

The world suddenly swirled around and I found myself looking at him from the back. I bit my lip hard to keep from cursing out loud. His light blue cotton pajama bottoms were stained with drops of blood.

I wanted to believe that the blood was from the beating, but I knew better. The strategic placement of the splatters was proof enough that he'd been violently raped. Someone had practically ripped him in half. He should have probably been in a hospital getting stitches; instead, he was hiding in a closet waiting for whoever to come back and do it again.

"I have to go, I have to go, I have to go, I have to go, I have to go..." His repeated whisper made me want to cringe. It was like listening to the voice of a dead person. It didn't sound like it had come from a little boy.

***FLASH***

The boy was about twelve years old. He was sneaking out a bedroom window with a backpack slung over his shoulders. His hands shook nervously and he seemed to be barely holding himself together.

He glanced over his shoulder again and again as he climbed down the fire escape. Once on the ground, he began to run as fast as he could down the street, heading toward no discernible destination. I don't think _he_ even knew where he was going; he was just running and running, his breath puffing between his lips as his ragged sneakers slapped against the asphalt.

I watched as he ran until he collapsed from exhaustion in an alley, crawling into a box to sleep the rest of the night.

I watched as he spent the next day wandering around inside a department store until night fell and it closed. He only had a single hotdog to eat all day because he had to hold on to what little money he had.

I watched that night as a group of kids beat him up and stole everything he had, ripping up the things they didn't want and throwing them at him, laughing as he cried. Those kids went back to their homes that night to sleep warm in their beds with full bellies and not a care in the world. They'd known he was a homeless runaway, and even though they hadn't needed what they took from him, they'd still thought it was funny to watch him beg and cry, then not give him anything back. They were real little bastards.

I watched him huddle next to a dumpster the rest of the night. He only shivered a little. He'd been smart enough to run away when the weather was fairly good. If it'd been winter, he would have probably frozen to death there in the filth.

I watched as he was raped for the first time three nights later. He was too weak from hunger to fight the guy off, even if he hadn't been about a third the man's size. After he was done, the guy tossed a crumpled five dollar bill on the boy's stomach, actually believing that that was payment enough for what he'd done.

I watched hunger get the best of the boy until he began to go down on his knees for men in alleyways for a few dollars a throw. He was in a state of mind where he didn't even seem to be afraid that he was going to be killed by the men that used him. He was just so hungry, the skin pulled tight over his ribs and his stomach pressing against his spine, that all he wanted was money to buy enough food to survive.

He cried at night when a drunk got too rough and beat the crap out of him, getting him to suck him off then not even paying. The boy seemed more upset about not being paid than about the following rape and beating.

I couldn't watch anymore. I wanted to be away from this place and the horrible things happening to the poor kid. He hadn't asked to be an orphan. I don't want to see anymore of his life. It hurt too much to look. I don't want to look. I don't want to look. I don't want to...

***FLASH***

The boy was better dressed than he'd been the last time I'd seen him, but there was a definite air of sleaze about his new style choice. He was wearing a pair of black pleather pants, a white undershirt, and black boots. His eyes were covered by large black sunglasses, and his lips had been painted to look glossy and bruised. He was a professional now, and it showed.

He was standing on a street corner amidst a pack of other prostitutes, some male, some female, and some so androgynous that it was impossible to tell what they were. They were all gathered together, far enough apart that they could each be seen for themselves, but close enough together that if one was attacked the others could rush in and try a rescue.

A sleek black car pulled up to the curb and a long fingered hand gestured to the boy, inviting him inside.

The boy smirked a little and ran a hand through his red hair, twirling the single blue lock around a finger. He strolled over to the car with a walk made to show off his beauty and grace, the fact that he was selling sex for money.

After he climbed in the car and it drove off, one of the female prostitutes took a small pad of paper and a pen out of her purse and quickly jotted down the license plate number just in case. They all knew that bad things happened in this life, and I was just finding that out too.

It was strange how the view seemed to sway and zoom after the boy in the car. It felt like a full-body fast forward of a videotape, only _I_ was the tape being quick-scrolled through. Very with the weird.

I found the boy in a motel room being reamed out by an oily looking man. The guy's black-black hair gleamed under the lights and there was a scary, crazy look in his eyes as he rammed his cock into the boy's ass from behind. The boy was gripping the bars of the headboard to keep his head from being slammed into the wall and had stuffed the sleeve of his discarded shirt into his mouth to clamp his teeth on to keep from either screaming or chewing his lip bloody. The sex was rough, and the boy didn't really seem to be enjoying it.

The man came with a shuddering grunt, and just as the last spurts of semen were leaving his cock, he reached down the side of the bed to pull a razor sharp knife out from under the mattress.

A cruel smirk twisted his lips and he jerked himself out of the boy's ass, making the kid squeal with pain. I wanted to scream at the boy to get up and run away, but my voice was silent.

I could only watch in horror as the man flicked the knife between the boy's legs, laughing at the sudden splash of blood.

The boy yelped and jerked away, his foot instinctively kicking out to slam against the man's chest as he flipped himself onto the floor. He clamped his left hand between his legs as he scrabbled at the night table next to him with his right, grabbing the ceramic lamp and jerking it hard to pull the plug out of the wall.

It was while watching the boy fumble around with the lamp that I realized he couldn't see. He was still wearing the sunglasses, but there was more to his blindness than just bits of darkly colored plastic.

The man cursed loudly and the boy seemed to follow the sound with his whole body, swinging the lamp he held with his right hand. There was a heavy clunk and crash as the lamp impacted with the man's head and broke, but the man wasn't completely stopped. He pressed his hands against his head but kept on yelling threats, looking for the knife he'd dropped.

Fear flashed across the boy's face as he realized that he hadn't put the man down for the count, and the lamp, his only weapon, was broken.

"No!" the boy screamed, pulling his bloody hand away from his mutilated genitals to rip off the sunglasses and drop them on the floor. His eyes were covered in several layers of duct tape, but he didn't seem to notice the pain as he jerked the tape off with one hard yank. I could see eyelashes stuck to the dull gray stickiness.

His eyes opened.

I had had my suspicions about who the boy was, but I hadn't really wanted to believe it. Now, seeing the glowing red optic blasts shooting out of his eyes, I had to actually admit to myself that it was "perfect" Scott Summers.

The man didn't even have time to scream before he was flash-fried, his body melted away from the thighs up. The remains of his legs fell to the floor with a dull thump, like something out of a horror movie, everything happening in slow motion.

Once the guy was dead, Scott's eyes snapped shut. Tears were streaming down his face, but hell, if it was me, I'd be crying too.

He limped around the body over to the other side of the bed where he grabbed a pillow and quickly pulled off the pillowcase. Wincing, he bundled the pillowcase up and held it tight against his crotch, trying to stanch some of the blood.

Naked and with only a pillowcase between his legs, he managed to make his way to the door and get it open. He stumbled down the hallway to the stairs, tripping down them to open the door at the bottom and limp out onto the street where he began yelling for help.

Keeping his eyes clenched tight closed, he screamed himself hoarse begging for someone to _please_ help him. Finally someone noticed him and called 911.

I sat huddled beside him in the ambulance all the way to the hospital. It sucked that I couldn't talk to him or touch him, that there was no way to reassure him that everything was going to be all right.

At the hospital doctors swarmed around Scott. They tried to get him to open his eyes, but he steadfastly refused. Finally they just focused on the damage the guy had done with the knife.

I don't know why, but I was kind of relieved when the main doctor pronounced that all Scott had lost was his left testicle. I'd thought for sure the guy had done some _real_ damage, but at least with one nut Scott's life wasn't completely over. It was just irrevocably changed, that was all.

From what I overheard, it turned out the guy had been a serial mutilator. He would pick up male prostitutes, fuck them, then cut off their penises and testicles. Some of them he'd let bleed to death, while for others he'd call an ambulance before making a runner. Either way, it was a definite bad deal.

I couldn't believe what had happened to Scott, and I wanted to believe it wasn't real, but I _knew_ that it was. Everything was just too detailed to be fake. This really was Scott's life I was seeing.

Standing outside Scott's room after he got back from surgery, I caught my first glimpse of the Professor in this whole nightmare.

Professor Xavier wheeled himself down the hallway straight to Scott's door, passing by nurses and doctors that didn't even seem to see him. I guess that whole telepathy gig was good for something.

Xavier opened the door and rolled himself inside, letting it close with a click behind him. I guess this was the first time he'd ever seen Scott.

I tried to walk through the door to get into the room, but I couldn't pass through it. I guess I was solid enough that I couldn't really break the laws of nature; I was just invisible.

"Dammit," I muttered. I wanted to see what Xavier was saying to Scott. It wasn't like I really cared or anything, it was just that Scott was so alone and...

***FLASH***

"What do you want from me?" Scott demanded. He stood in the Professor's study with his hands on his hips, a defiant look on his face. His eyes were covered in a thick layer of white bandage.

"I don't want anything from you, Scott," Xavier said. He was seated comfortably in a brown leather chair. "I just want to help you."

"Help me? No one can help me. My life is a fucking joke and so is all of this." Scott threw his arms out in an all-encompassing gesture that took in himself, the Professor, the mansion, and maybe even the whole entire world.

"It doesn't have to be," Xavier said. "I can help you."

"How, by fucking a better life into me? Is that what you want, '_Professor'_? To fuck me? 'Cause if that's all you want, well hey then, I owe you getting me out of the hospital and out of the clutches of Social Services, don't I?" Scott began unbuttoning his shirt with a methodical kind of purpose.

Xavier held out his hand. "No, Scott, I didn't bring you here for that."

Scott's arms fell back to his sides. "Then why the fuck did you bring me here?"

"To help you."

There was obvious disbelief on Scott's face, and I didn't blame him. After all the bad shit that had gone down in his life... was it any wonder that he didn't trust anyone with a too-good-to-be-true kind of offer?

_It's all right, Scott_, I thought. _The Prof won't do anything bad to you, even I know that. Someday you'll know it too_.

Suddenly, I missed the arrogant, perfect Scott Summers I'd always seen before. I didn't want to know all this horrible crap about him. Sure, it made me realize that he was braver than I'd ever thought he was before, but it also made him seem vulnerable, highlighted all the glaring weaknesses in his armor of perfection.

I don't know why I'm here seeing all this stuff, but I wished I could go back and make it so it never happened. I don't want to know that Scott's past was much worse than mine could ever be. I want his life to be as beautiful as he is. I want my safe, comforting lies back.

***FLASH***

I was in a room I'd never been in before. Scott was sitting on a metal table with his bare legs dangling. The room didn't look warm enough for him to just be wearing a pair of light blue boxer shorts and a white undershirt, but who was I to complain. I was invisible boy here. It wasn't like anyone was going to listen to my concerns.

The door slid open with a WHOOSHING! sound. Scott's head turned in that direction, though the bandages around his eyes were a pretty clear statement to his current blindness.

"Well, Scott, I think I've found it," Xavier said, rolling his wheelchair inside.

"Found what?" Scott asked. "I've been waiting here for half an hour in my underwear, and I still don't know why I'm here."

Xavier smiled. "You're here because I've figured out how your mutation works, and how we're going to be able to let you see again."

"W-what?" Scott stuttered. His face went milk pale and he shivered with more than cold.

"Here, these are for you," Xavier said, reaching out to take Scott's left hand in his, folding the boy's fingers around a pair of sunglasses. I recognized the red lenses and realized that they were probably the first versions of Scott's usual shades.

"What are these?" Scott asked, cupping them in both hands.

"They're glasses," Xavier said patiently. "The lenses are made out of a synthetic ruby quartz compound that should block the force of your optic blasts. You'll be able to see as long as you wear them."

"You mean I won't kill anyone by looking at them anymore?" Scott asked. His voice sounded strange, like a little boy's.

"No Scott, it will be perfectly safe for you to see now. Why don't you take off the bandages and try your glasses on?" Xavier suggested.

"But what if they don't work?" Scott asked. "What if I hurt you?"

Xavier rested one hand gently on Scott's knee. "It will be fine, Scotty. You take your time and try on the glasses and everything will be all right."

Scott chewed on his lower lip for a long moment. "O-okay," he finally said.

Resting the glasses on his knee, he reached up with both hands to unwrap the bandages from around his head, letting them fall to the floor. His eyes were tight clenched close and sweat glistened along his hairline and over his upper lip. He was just so afraid of hurting someone.

After Scott just sat there for nearly ten minutes, Xavier finally reached out and picked up the glasses. He flipped them open and gently brought them to Scott's face, leaning his elbows on the table so he could reach upward to hook the glasses over Scott's ears. "There, that's not so bad now, is it?" he asked.

Scott slowly shook his head. "No." But his eyes were still tightly shut.

"Please Scott, just try them," Xavier said, moving his chair backward so he could bring it around the edge of the table so he was sitting beside Scott and not directly in front of him. "See, I'm over here now. Even if the glasses don't work, you won't be able to hurt me. You can just close your eyes again."

"Okay," Scott said, but still couldn't open his eyes. A fine tremble was running through his whole body and I could practically smell the fear coming off him in waves. He was terrified that he would open his eyes and burning death would come out. It was just so sad to watch. He was so scared of what he could do.

When he finally managed to get his courage together and open his eyes a crack, there was a glimmer of red sparking around the edges of his glasses, but the lenses held the optic blasts in check.

Scott opened his eyes fully in surprise.

"I can see!" he cried. "I can see and no one's dying!"

"Yes, Scott, no one's dying," Xavier said. I could hear the tears in his voice, but I don't think Scott even noticed. He was so happy to be able to see and to have his powers under some kind of semblance of control. He just didn't want to hurt anyone by accident anymore.

***FLASH***

I was in a bedroom watching as Scott stood in front of a floor length mirror. He was wearing khaki colored pants and a navy blue sweater with white polo stripes around his upper arms. His hair had been precisely combed and he looked so shiny fresh that I almost couldn't recognize him from the other times I'd seen him. This was the more common Scott Summers that I'd known.

The expression on his face though... It made me think of that crying, raging, hurting boy with blood everywhere.

From behind his red glasses he was glaring at his reflection. "What the hell is the matter with you?" he muttered angrily. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides.

I moved around to stand at his shoulder, trying to see what had him so upset, but all I could see was his reflection. He looked beautiful to me, every single bit the beautiful boy without a care in the world. So why was he so pissed off? Why was he hurting so badly that I could almost taste it on my tongue?

Suddenly his fist lashed out, punching the mirror with a cracking, shattering force. Blood coated his torn knuckles, but his expression didn't change. He wasn't feeling the pain... not physically, at least.

"Pull it together, Summers," he growled. "You have a job to do here. The Professor has given you a place to stay and a purpose. Don't screw this up."

I couldn't help shivering at the sound of his voice. The words were filled with so much loathing, and it wasn't aimed at the Professor.

He sucked on his bleeding knuckles as he turned away from the broken mirror. "Remember, as long as you pretend that you're clean, no one has to know how dirty you are," he whispered. "They don't have to see the ugliness. They don't _deserve_ to see the ugliness. They deserve better than you, but you're all they've got. So pull it together and go out there and _be_ what the Professor wants you to be."

He used that kind of peppy, upbeat tone of voice that the self-help videos suggested. I was reminded of Stuart Small from the old Saturday Night Live episodes.

Even as I watched, Scott schooled his face into a mask of inscrutable calm and walked toward the door with his shoulders square. All of a sudden, he was the never ruffled, never bothered, almost inhumanly controlled field leader of the X-Men.

Watching him walk out the door, I suddenly realized why there'd been a niggling sense of familiarity in the back of my mind. That was the outfit and the expression he'd been wearing the first time I'd met him. This was a day that I remembered, and if I followed him I'd see my punk ass self in a few short hours. It kind of freaked me out.

It was almost a relief when...

***FLASH***

Whirling lights and flashing color and I found myself slammed back into my body and the real world. I was lying on the ground in the middle of the street.

"What the fuck..." I pressed my left hand against my head as I climbed back upright.

"Geez Todd, are you all right?" Summer's goody-goody voice asked me as he appeared next to me.

I looked at him for a moment, taking in the worried expression. He was wearing pressed jeans and a long sleeved red shirt. His hair was neatly combed and he was as physically perfect as usual, but everything was suddenly different for me.

Yesterday I might have complained that he was too preppy and perfect, but today I knew the truth.

Sure, Scott was trying hard to make a better life for himself, but that was just because the things that had happened to him were so fucking ugly. It was like this giant lie he was trying to feed the world to hide the fact that he'd ever been hurt.

I'll admit that I'm ugly and that maybe I'm not the smartest person out there, but I'm not completely stupid. I _can_ learn, it just takes me a little longer than other people in some cases.

My life hasn't exactly been cake, but Scott's life has been a nightmare. Still, even after being hurt so much, he's still trying to make things better for himself. He's still optimistic enough to make changes in his personal behavior and the way he carries himself to become someone better than he'd been before. He still cares about other people even though most of them are complete dicks and don't deserve his sympathies.

I know now that Scott's life isn't perfect and probably never will be, but at least he's _trying_ to do something with it. It's a lesson I could stand to learn.

"I'm all right, Scott," I said without my usual wiseass lack of charm.

He gave me a worried look for a moment from behind his ruby quartz glasses, then a small smile tugged at his lips. "You scared me for a moment, Todd. I thought you really hurt yourself flopping down in the middle of the street like that."

"Naw, nothing can keep a good Toad down," I said.

He nodded. "Yeah. Guess it's back to opposite sides of the fences now," he said. "I just wanted to make sure you were all right first."

Looking at him, I _knew_ that he didn't want my pity. He was strong enough to have survived all that life had thrown at him, and pity would have just made him feel small. I forced a negligent shrug. "Whatever."

Giving him a quick nod, I hopped down the street in the direction of the Brotherhood house. I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn't look back.

He had rebuilt his life from nothing, and there was no way I was going to break him wide open again. He deserves to have whatever kind of happiness he can find.

Looking at Scott's life, I'd realized that nothing is completely perfect, no matter how good it looks from the outside. And nothing is completely ugly, not even me.

.

In his private study in the mansion, Charles Xavier opened his eyes. He completely ignored the tears that had stained his cheeks and smiled a little.

He hadn't wanted to show Todd those images from Scott's past, and he knew that Scott wouldn't thank him for what he'd done, but he had known that it was something that needed to happen.

Todd thought he was too ugly to ever be loved, while Scott thought he was too dirty to be cherished. Together, they might someday realize how much they had in common and forge something new between them.

Scott worshipped Jean as the girl he could never have. She was the one thing his image of a well-adjusted storybook wonderful life needed to make it all real. But as a good adoptive father, Xavier knew that his son would never be happy with that shallow image of a perfect girl.

Todd didn't seem like the kind of person that anyone could trust, much less love, but Xavier had seen into the depths of the boy. He had the kernels of a good man in him, and if they were ever allowed to grow, he would definitely be a worthy partner for someone that needed that extra bit of attention, like Scott did.

Xavier didn't know if his machinations would work out like he hoped, but he could only dream that someday Scott would be happy. And if the only way to that happiness involved Todd "Toad" Tolensky standing by his side, then so be it.

_Anything for you, Scott_, Xavier thought, _anything at all_.

.

=THE END=


End file.
